April 27, 1971
We flew from CCK (Taiwan) up to Naha (Okinawa) where we picked up a
load of vegetables. We flew on to Quinhon (Vietnam),
and finally down to Tan Son Nhut (Vietnam) to begin our in-country
rotation.
When
we landed at Naha Monday a master sergeant asked if he could ride with
us to Quinhon. After I read his orders and asked him some
questions I concluded there was about a 50-50 chance he was away
without leave--it
was all rather fishy. But I figured if he was AWOL it was still
better that he return to his station, so I took him.
April 29, 1971
Cheated
death
again--another
day
of
derring-do
in
the
war
zone.
Had
a
Vietnamese pax mission and we got off late because of several small
problems. The VNAF ramp was a dog-and-pony show as usual but we
got off to Pleiku after shooing off one stowaway.
At Pleiku the radar controller gave us a really bad GCA
(ground-controlled approach). We landed OK, but if the weather
was worse we wouldn't have made it. I was concerned about
subsequent crews, so after we landed I phoned the GCA outfit to talk
about how much
they misaligned us.
May 3, 1971
On flights around Vietnam our callsign was "Spare". This day we
were Spare 621 and we were scheduled for seven stops. For
something different we took a USO band to Danang by way of Hue and Chu
Lai.
There
were
two
girls
and
it
was
kinda
fun
to
have them make the radio calls. They guys
on the ground got quite a charge out of it.
When we arrived at
Danang, all the passengers got off but one. I asked him where he
was going and he said Chu Lai! Seems he'd gotten on at Hue and
for some reason didn't get off while we were at Chu Lai! He
checked with Danang passenger service and learned it would be 14 hours
before the next flight to Chu Lai.
Our remaining stops were Quinhon, Tan Son Nhut, Chu Lai, and Tan Son
Nhut.
He
asked if it'd be OK to ride along to Quinhon, TSN, then Chu Lai and I
said sure. When we arrived at TSN, Saigon Tea said, "Spare 621,
you're fini." So here was this poor guy on the opposite end of
the country from where he wanted to be. Ah well, there was a
flight to Chu Lai at 7:30 AM.
